Yard

We've spent the past few weeks doing a ton of work in our yard.  We really like the Japanese Garden style, especially since there are a lot of climate and plant similarities between Japan and the PNW.  We feel like we have finally gotten the skeleton of the yard in place so that we can add things on here and there to complete it over the next couple of years.  My mother wanted to see some pictures so here is part of her Mother's Day present...

Starting with the worst first...here is the side of the house behind the playset that we need to build a retaining wall, level and eventually build a shed.  You can see the french drain that we just did in the corner which was the low spot and a lot of water sat there.

Moving around counter clock wise from there is the next weakest part of our yard.  We made the edge of the grass stick our more with its curves than it did before.  

On the other side of the fence we would always get a ton of weeds growing through.  We dug a 10 inch trench and put a weed barrier in it that also went up 6 inches onto the fence and was stapled down.  Hopefully that will keep the weeds back.

We also put in a trim around the grass to keep it from growing into the flower beds.  We moved a couple of the large rocks around, stood some up and laid others down.  We put in cobblestone in various locations. 

I'm currently working on a drip line to get all the pots on the deck and the hanging baskets.

This is the dry stream bed that is coming out of a future water feature.

 The little circle flower bed here is the herb garden.  One benefit to PNW weather is that some herbs become perennials as they don't completely die out during the mild winter.

Plans for the future:

• get some 1 and 2 man rocks to compliment the 3-4 man rocks
• put bark over topsoil
• get more plants
• build arbor next to concrete patio
• build firepit, arbor and bench in corner of yard that has view of mount rainier
• paint the concrete bench and bird bath
• get a circular table and chairs for concrete patio
• get sand for low spots in grass
• finish the water feature
• build bridge for the cut out (but not removed) section of the pathway
• wrap the bottoms of the deck columns and future fire pit with rock veneer
• build the retaining wall
• level the area by the retaining wall with the concrete walkway
• build other french drains in more swampy areas
• Learn how to be patient when it comes to yards so that we can have some zen before we finish our Japanese garden